


Loki and The Statue

by LokiismyfavouriteAvenger



Category: Loki - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Agents, Blue Loki, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Hydra, Jötunn Loki, Little bit of angst, Loki Needs a Friend, Loki finds a friend, Loki on Midgard, Loki saves the day, Loki's POV, Manila is the new Budapest, Missions, New Friendship, Odin does the right thing, Odin isn't such a dick, Odin listens, Platonic Cuddling, SHIELD, SHIELD Agent Loki (Marvel), Tiny bit of Angst, Virus, feel good fic, for once, friends - Freeform, friendship fluff, heat - Freeform, manila, post avengers au, the STATUE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 15:57:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21200276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokiismyfavouriteAvenger/pseuds/LokiismyfavouriteAvenger
Summary: After the battle of New York and his trial in Asgard, Loki is sent back to Midgard to become an agent and help the Avengers. He is paired up with female agent Tony Stark only calls The Statue due to her stoic calmness.Loki woudln't be Loki if he didn't try to get her to show emotion. Will he succeed?





	Loki and The Statue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit different from my usual stuff. This summer, in this terrible heat, it popped into my head and just wouldn't go away, so I had to write it down. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!
> 
> Thanks @we_dreamerz for beta-ing and some input!

Loki looked at the woman sleeping peacefully next to him. He shook his head, lost in thought. How could she? How could she lie there and sleep when he lay next to her, possibly plotting to murder her? Maybe even in her sleep?

She intrigued him. A lot.

\--------------------

After his failed attempt at conquering Midgard, he’d been sent back to stand trial on Asgard. He’d expected a lot, even the worst, but he hadn’t expected to be sent back to Midgard again to help the Avengers. For once, the Allfather had listened to his wife. After long, tenuous arguments, Loki’s foster mother Frigga had been allowed to visit him in his cell. She had tricked him, HIM, the trickster! The moment she’d pressed her hand to his temple, he’d known what she was trying to do. He had tried to fight it, to fight _her_, but once he broke free, it was already too late. Frigga had stood there, tears streaming down her face. She’d tried to embrace him, but he’d taken a step back and she’d left him. 

A week later, Odin had announced his sentence. Help the Avengers on Midgard, only his shapeshifting and his inherent powers he didn’t dare to try out left to him – or so Odin thought. Loki was to become a spy for them, an _agent_. 

He’d heard the accounts of what Stark referred to as “The Epic Stare-Down of the Century”, a meeting between Fury and Odin, two one-eyed forces of nature growling at each other before coming to a surprising agreement. 

Loki knew Odin had taken measures against Thanos in the meantime. Eventually, he learned about the team up with the Ancient One, a powerful sorceress who lived her life hidden away in a remote country on the other side of Midgard. As loath as he was to admit it, Loki knew Odin had done the right thing for once. The Aesir might stand a chance against the Mad Titan if they stood united with their allies. 

But he wasn’t to be a part of it. _He_ was to stay on Midgard. 

\--------------------

It had not been a warm welcome. Banner had stayed hidden away during Loki’s first month there, fearing he would let the monster out accidentally. Agent Barton had thrown a fit, even yelling at Fury. The Captain and the Widow just sent him chilly glances. Only Stark seemed somewhat amused by the situation, though Loki knew he was surveilling him 24/7, ready to strike at the tiniest inference. 

Loki didn’t plan on doing anything the so-called Avengers would find suspicious. If he was sincere to himself, he was just glad he hadn’t been sentenced to death – though he’d had preparations in order for that case – and he wasn’t imprisoned anymore. He was also relieved he didn’t have to face Thanos or the Other again, but let others do that and fight those battles. He’d fought his battles and he had lost them. The one against the Avengers even on purpose, though he would never admit that to anyone. 

After two missions together with the Avengers minus Thor, who had conveniently disappeared to Asgard again, Loki had gained a bit of trust among Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. After another nine successful missions with one or more members of said club of so-called superheroes, they had had a meeting with Fury. And Megan. Or Meg. Though he knew that wasn’t her real name.

Loki was to be teamed up with someone, permanently. They had just discovered a secret society that had infiltrated their own special agent group called SHIELD and had to investigate. They needed people whose faces hadn’t been all over the newspaper and Loki still was a shapeshifter.

He was skeptical and he couldn’t figure out why her. Agent Mills. Megan Mills. What a ridiculous name. Had they not been able to come up with something better? 

Apparently, she was one of their top agents. She was 5’6, fit, but not overly muscular with shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes. She was not dark skinned, nor very pale, but she tanned quickly and could easily be taken for Latina, as he found out a few weeks later when they were on a mission in Ecuador. She was fluent in Spanish and able to imitate the regional dialects. She did the same in English, so it was impossible to say where she originally came from. 

Loki was normally good at reading people. Of course he was, he was the trickster and the God of Lies! Though Odin had taken his powers, he still could tell when someone was lying, so he knew when Meg wasn’t telling the truth, even when she was fooling everyone around them. She would have been a glorious actress. 

The thing that drove him up the walls about her was her absolute, stoic lack of emotion. 

Loki tried to question her why she had agreed to be paired off with him. He wanted to know her motif, her incentive, what made her do things the way she did. Was she after fame? Was it a career thing? Was she one of those weird women he’d met who had a crush on him?

“Because I know I can work effectively and efficiently with you,” had been her answer, delivered in calm, steady manner. She spoke the truth, Loki knew. 

He tried to get a rise out of her. And he failed. It drove him nuts.

They trained together before their first mission. Loki didn’t have his godly strength anymore, yet he was very agile and strong for a human. Meg was almost as good as he was. She even beat him in one out of five sparring rounds, something only the Widow could say of herself. They dined together in silence. Loki wanted to put her on edge, but she didn’t seem to care. She just sat there, eating, with a blank face. When he asked her something, she replied. She didn’t ask questions herself.

They had to pretend to be a couple during most of their missions. Loki had made it his personal goal to get a reaction from her, just any kind of reaction, really, as she was so completely, utterly and infuriatingly _composed_ all the time.

He asked her if she wasn’t scared to be sleeping next to him as he could murder her in her sleep. She replied that this was highly unlikely. He tried to irritate her by using his words, his strongest weapon next to his magic. He wanted to charm her, see if she would fall for him. She just looked at him with a completely calm face, devoid of any emotion. He eventually shut up because he felt stupid. 

When she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, he threatened her with words as well as bodily, caged her in, invaded her private space. She remained calm. The next time he took a shower, he swaggered past her completely naked. The only thing she said was “I’m not one of those Americans who are scared of nudity.”

The next time she took a shower, she didn’t bother to wrap a towel around herself either. Loki stared at her, thought he had _finally_ gotten a reaction from her, but apparently, she just found it more convenient to get dressed in a spacious bedroom than a cramped, tiny bathing chamber. 

She wasn’t like that when they were playing their roles. Oh no. She could play them all. The madly in love honeymooner, giggling all the time, draped all over Loki, her supposed new husband. The long-married woman who was exhausted by her husband’s idiotic behavior. The quarreling wife who was just a pen and a paper away from filing for divorce. The passionate lover who couldn’t keep her hands to herself. She kissed Loki so convincingly that for a second, he himself thought there was more to it.

There were times when they weren’t pretending to be a couple but arrived at separate times, investigating different people in the same area. She was brilliant at it. She pretended to be a joyful young woman, a timid kitchen help, a constantly worried single mother who desperately needed the job as chamber maid. Or a rich heiress, spoiled and bratty who would take a liking to older men. Or a self-made millionaire. A business travelling workaholic. An office worker bored out of her mind. Or a drug addict desperately in need of money. 

She played them all so convincingly, yet returned to Loki with a blank, empty face and no emotional reaction whatsoever. 

It drove him up the wall.

He learned a lot about her, though never through her own, direct words. When she was flirting with a guy from Hydra to get information and whispered to him that she just _loved_ lobster, Loki knew it was a lie. When she told a shady middle-aged businessman at a party that _My Way_ was her favorite song, Loki knew it was a lie. When she spoke to a chamber maid with a thick accent and relayed a story about her family in Australia, Loki knew it was a lie. But she never said anything to him, never trusted him with any truths about her background, her likes and dislikes. Nevertheless, he very slowly managed to piece together the true Meg piece by piece, lie by lie. 

And then the unspeakable happened. 

They were sharing a room, pretending to be a married couple, on a mission in Cuba. And Loki had a nightmare. 

Thanos again. He was laughing at him while the Other poked him with a red-hot iron, again and again while a small coal fire was burning just underneath his feet, searing his skin. He begged for water, but they wouldn’t give him anything to drink, though he hadn’t had anything in a week. 

Loki felt a touch to his hair and heard a soothing voice. He’d had this dream numerous times, reliving one of his worst memories, but the touch and the voice were new. They were calming. They were good. 

He woke up panting, sweating and shivering, his feet tangled in the bedsheets. He had taken to sleeping in his boxers, but even those were drenched in sweat, as was the linen beneath him. The touch was still there, as was the voice.

“Shh, it’s alright. Everything’s alright, you’re safe,” the voice murmured. 

Loki’s eyes adjusted to the dim light from the street that came through the curtains of the hotel room. It was still dark outside.

Meg was lying on her side next to him, pushed up on one elbow. She was stroking his hair with the other hand, mumbling soothing words to him. 

Loki forced himself to sit. She withdrew her hand. He switched on the light on his side of the bed. She looked at him with her usual unreadable expression. 

“You had a nightmare,” she stated.

Well, no way to deny that.

“Yes.” 

She just looked at him. He sighed, then got up to get a glass of water and use the bathroom. He looked for another pair of underpants and changed right there in the middle of the room. He also brought the extra linen from the wardrobe and changed the bedding on his side. When he lay back down, Meg was still looking at him with her blank face.

“Better?” she asked, her voice as even and neutral as ever.

“Yes.” 

“Good.”

He lay back down and turned off the lights. Unfortunately, the scenes of his dream, the _memories_ came back to him as soon as he closed his eyes. They snapped open again. She must have known, as his breathing had accelerated. 

“Do you want me to stroke your hair?” her voice came from somewhere next to him. 

“What?” 

“To relax you. It might help.”

Of course, his first instinct was to say no. But then again, it had felt nice. Very nice. 

“If you say one word to anyone, ANYONE, I’ll kill you on the spot,” he threatened her instead. 

“I won’t. So, do you want me to help or not?”

After a pause, he decided to give this ridiculous idea a shot.

“Go ahead,” he mumbled. 

Her hand found his head again and slowly, gently stroked through his hair. He would never admit it, but it felt wonderful. To his own horror, he sighed in contentment. He turned his back to her, embarrassed and irritated. A moment later, he felt her presence behind him. She was talking to him in a low voice while one arm wrapped itself around his waist. Her body pressed against him. 

Very briefly, he thought she wanted to seduce him, but she didn’t move again, just held him. 

And it felt good, much better than he would have ever thought.

Here he was, Loki … Friggason? In a hotel room in Cuba, on a mission for the Avengers with a mortal woman whose only truths were revealed through her lies. She held him, and it felt good. It only took him a little while to fall into a dreamless sleep.

If he had thought the occurrences of that night would change things, he was wrong. In the morning, Meg was just as reserved as always. 

When he next had a nightmare, two weeks later during a mission in Greenland while they were sleeping in a tent, Meg shuffled close again. She zipped their sleeping bags together and soon she was holding him again. And Loki let her without comment. 

Five weeks later in Monaco, Loki was the one who woke up to whimpers from the other side of the obscenely broad bed. They were spending the night in an obscenely large suite in an obscenely expensive hotel. And this time, Meg was having a nightmare. 

At first, Loki didn’t know what to do or how to react. Then, he started to speak to her.

“Shh, Meg, everything is fine, you’re safe, you’re good,” he whispered. 

She woke with a start, wide eyed and obviously scared, though her face became blank almost at once. Her breathing was faster though. 

Without a word, she got up and disappeared to the bathroom. When she came back, she didn’t acknowledge Loki in the least, but got settled on her side of the bed again. She turned her back to him. 

When Loki moved closer, she stiffened briefly and for a moment he thought she would tell him to back off. But she didn’t. He wrapped his arms around her, mumbling calming words of encouragement. She relaxed in his grip and soon, they were both sleeping again.

The following days, Loki wondered what she might have dreamt of. She wouldn’t answer any questions, he knew that without needing to ask. 

The next evening, Meg let the mask of the hyped and completely over the top rich bitch she personified currently fall as soon as they entered the sanctuary of their suite. Loki wrote down things for their mission report on their laptop while she was in the shower. He was rather good with Midgardian technology by now, unlike his foster brother who couldn’t even use a phone. He tried to have a look at Meg’s file in Stark’s internal database but was denied access. 

Grumbling under his breath, he shut down the machine. That was the moment Meg walked out of the bathroom, a towel perched atop her head, not wearing any clothes. He was used to seeing her naked by now and though she had an attractive figure, he wasn’t interested in her in _that_ way. Her face was the usual mask of indifference she always showed him. He wondered if she ever showed any emotion, to anybody. Any _real_ emotions.

He sighed and got ready for bed. They briefly discussed the next steps they had to take, then turned off the lights and lay in the dark. Loki held his breath. He felt like he was waiting for something. 

“Loki?” Meg’s voice sounded as collected as always.

“Hm?”

“Would you hold me?” she asked, still as calm as ever. 

It wasn’t a flirty request, it had nothing to do with sexuality or seduction. It was something completely else. Loki felt it too. He only knew it when she asked, but he had hoped for something like that. For a chance to hold her and be held by her. Physical contact in a pure, innocent form just for the sake of itself.

“Yes,” he replied, shuffling closer in the dark. 

He felt her head resting near his shoulder and wrapped his arm around her. 

“Is this alright?”

“Yes. This is good. Thank you. And good night.”

“Good night.”

It was a feeling of security. A feeling he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. There was trust, quiet, safety. It felt as if the nightmares wouldn’t reach him as long as he was touching her. They didn’t need to talk about it, but he knew it felt the same for her. 

Of course, it wasn’t true. During their following missions, they would cuddle up at night if they spent the night in the same room. Yet both of them were plagued by nightmares from time to time. Nevertheless, the knowledge of another person being there, soothing, talking to them and just understanding, helped when they woke up soaked in sweat and panicking. 

To Loki, if felt as if they had reached another level of trust and intimacy, though Meg still didn’t display any emotions. He had paid attention when they were at Avengers HQ. It wasn’t just with him. It was her behavior towards everybody. Maybe Meg was just like that. Maybe she had trouble showing what she felt. Or maybe she didn’t feel anything? He doubted that, though he couldn’t prove the opposite. 

They worked well together. Their missions were always successful, and the Avengers seemed happy with that. 

After returning to HQ again, Loki was facing a rather peculiar problem. He was lying in bed, exhausted and ready for sleep, but he couldn’t. He tossed and turned, but sleep wouldn’t come. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t pinpoint it.

There was a soft knock on his door. He sat up in bed. 

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Meg.”

“Come in!”

Meg entered the room. She wore a robe over her usual sleeping gear: black pants and a t-shirt, the standard SHIELD agent sleep wear. Loki looked at her expectantly.

“It seems that I can’t fall asleep alone. Would you mind if I slept here?” she asked directly.

Suddenly, Loki understood. It was the same for him. Sleep evaded him because there was no Meg wrapping her arms around him.

He didn’t answer verbally, just pulled the blanket to the side for her. She approached with a nod.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. It... it was the same for me,” he offered.

“Ah.”

“Yes.”

“Good night then,” she mumbled, her face already pressed against his side.

“Good night,” he whispered into her hair.

\--------------------

They continued like this for several months. It slowly became clear that the Hydra conspiracy against SHIELD was much worse than they had thought at first and they had to be very careful.

Loki and Meg were on a mission in Manila. They were staying in a tiny run-down hotel that only had electricity occasionally. Loki had been mortified by the state of their beds, not to mention the bathroom, yet they had to stay there. Two more nights in this hellhole and they could leave. 

It was hot, unbearably so. Humidity was by 100% and temperatures never dropped below 30 degrees, not even at night. Loki hated it and he had a vague feeling Meg didn’t like it either. Though she never complained. As always, her face was set in a stoic expressionlessness. 

That evening, Loki was in the bathroom, trying to touch as little of anything as possible when he heard a whimper. At once, he dropped the towel he was holding – thank the Norns he’d brought his own – and hurried to the bedroom.

Meg was lying on the bed, writhing. She was pale and sweating, her breathing going far too fast. Her eyes were closed.

“Meg! What’s wrong? Meg! Talk to me!” Loki growled, climbing on the bed next to her. 

She didn’t answer, only groaned. Loki touched her wrist and his eyes went wide. Her pulse was racing, and her skin was overheated. 

“Hot,” she whispered.

“What? Yes, it’s hot. Too hot. Meg, what’s wrong with you, do you know that?” Loki asked.

He would never admit it, but in truth, he was panicking. He hadn’t spent much attention to any of the medical training modules he’d been made to attend, but he knew Meg was burning up from the inside. He had to cool her down, he just didn’t know how as they had no ice. The power was out again, not even the water worked properly. 

Loki got out his tablet, frantically looking for their emergency contacts. 

“Stark? Jarvis? Anyone? You have to get us out of here, Meg is ill. I repeat, agent Mills is very ill. She is overheating, feverish and sweating. Get us out!” he bellowed into the communication device he wore. 

“Understood. You will be picked up in two hours. You have to make it till then. A medical team will bet there with you,” came a muffled voice through the intercom.

Loki cursed.

Quick-thinking, he uploaded their daily mission report to Stark’s files. They’d been scouting a Hydra lab, had taken pictures, watched closely who left and who entered. 

As the files were uploading, Loki returned to Meg. She had calmed down but was whimpering. Her skin felt like it was burning. Loki didn’t know what to do, he just knew he had to cool her down, or she would likely die. 

He had an idea but waved it away again. He couldn’t do that. Or could he? 

Looking at Meg whose breathing was ragged now, he decided he could, though he was scared to do it. 

He got up from the bed, just in case he lost control. Loki closed his eyes and concentrated. It took him a moment to find it, he’d buried the monster so deep inside, but there it was. Dormant. With a little push, just a tiny nudge, he woke it.

When he opened his eyes again, they were red. He felt the cold seep through his veins, through his muscles and his skin. He looked down. He’d never seen himself naked in his Jotunn form, but as they had taken to sleeping naked in this gods forsaken abode, he saw himself now: blue skin, stretching over his form, the inherited tribal markings that indicated his royal lineage. 

He looked over at Meg. She had her eyes closed therefore she couldn’t see his fearful appearance. 

Loki concentrated again to regulate the temperature of his skin, then climbed on the bed next to her. Very slowly, he extended a hand to gently touch her arm, just for a millisecond. Nothing bad happened. He crawled closer to Meg, touching her arm again without pulling away. She sighed. 

Loki shuffled closer to her, carefully wrapping his cool body around her heated one. She sighed again, this time clearly in relief. He felt her relax in his arms and for a second, he feared the worst, but then she slowly turned her face towards his – and opened her eyes.

Loki held his breath, bracing for a scream. Instead, she squinted.

“L… Loki?” she whispered.

“Shh, yes, it’s me. No need to be scared, I’m sorry you had to see this. They are on their way, help will be here shortly. I have to cool you down,” he tried to sooth her. 

Blinking a few times, she kept her gaze on him. Instead of panic – what he had expected – or indifference – what he had thought within the bounds of possibility – her expression showed something else. Very slowly, Meg brought a hand up to his face. She traced the lines on his forehead, then cupped his cheek. 

“You’re… fascinating,” she whispered in awe. 

Loki couldn’t believe it. She was currently cuddling one of the most hideous creatures of all the nine realms and she found him fascinating? He huffed a breathless laugh. She must have been sicker than he’d thought. 

“Do you want something to drink?” he asked, trying to distract her from his fearsome image.

“Yes please,” she croaked.

Loki reached out to the nightstand where a bottle of water stood. He helped Meg sitting up a bit and held the bottle to her lips. She gulped down half of it, then motioned for him to put it away. She settled back down, looking a bit further away from death’s doorstep now, though still far too close in his vicinity.

She didn’t close her eyes but kept looking Loki up and down.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered eventually, right before falling asleep. 

Loki stared at her. Of everything he had expected, this was the least likely thing she could have said. He was worried just how delirious she must have been. He could feel that she wasn’t as hot anymore as she had been, so at least shapeshifting to his birthform had done some good.

After what seemed like half an eternity, he heard a crackling noise via his communication device. He was given instructions, in five minutes, the medical team would be there. 

Loki climbed of the bed, turned back to his Aesir form and pulled on some pants and a shirt. Then, he managed to put some underwear and a t-shirt onto the sleeping Meg. He couldn’t have her found wearing nothing at all. 

\--------------------

An hour later, they were on a Quinjet, travelling homewards. Loki cringed. He really thought of the Avengers compound as home now. How far had he fallen?!

He shot a glance in Meg’s direction. She was still sleeping, attached to several monitors that made beeping noises and showed all kinds of graphs and numbers. He had been assured she would be fine. 

Loki leaned back and closed his eyes. When he woke up, they were only two hours away from New York. 

\--------------------

Meg and Loki were being briefed on what had happened in Manila. Meg was sitting up in a hospital style bed at Avengers HQ, Loki sitting next to her while Stark and Banner went over the details.

“So, you’re saying there was a leak in Hydra’s secret bioweapons lab?” Loki asked for the second time, still unable to believe what a close call it all had been.

“Yep. Almost 700 dead due to the virus, everyone inside the lab included. It spread pretty quickly outside as well, but luckily the Science Bros have been able to create a counteragent thanks to our Statue here,” Stark elaborated, gesturing towards Meg. 

They’d managed to create the counteragent because they had several blood samples from Meg and could determine what kind of virus they were dealing with. Stark had arranged for the Hydra base to be blamed for the deaths, so their support in the population near the base, who had known something sinister was happening but just hadn’t bothered had significantly declined.

“I still don’t get how you survived, though. Everyone else whose been infected died roughly five hours after infection due to high fever and the resulting ugly consequences for the body. Why haven’t you?” Stark asked, eyes narrowing.

Meg kept her cool.

“Loki cooled me down,” she answered, keeping a straight face as always. 

Stark shook his head, then got up. 

“Whatever. Bruce, I hand over to you. I think it’s time for a drink,” he mumbled while leaving the room.

Banner adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

“Well, Tony already said it. You are the only survivor of that stage of infection. Loki, you haven’t been infected due to not being human. The virus was in the air, breathing it in was enough to kill. The fever should have killed you. I have a theory, but I won’t press you into answering questions. Anyways… you’ll have to stay here tonight, for monitoring. Looks like you’re going to be just fine, though” Banner explained with a tiny smile.

“Well, I’ll… leave you to it,” he murmured, got up and left.

Loki was nervous. He was certain Meg wouldn’t want to work with him anymore, after she’d seen his true self. It would be hard to start over with someone else.

They had become friends in their own, weird way.

However, something happened that Loki wouldn’t have expected in a million years.

Meg turned to him, eyes sparkling, curiosity and awe in her expression. 

“You were magnificent, Loki. I mean... you were blue, weren’t you? That wasn’t just the fever, was it?” she asked, suddenly insecure.

“I… yes, I was blue. I’m sorry you had to see that,” he repeated the words he’d said to her in Manila.

She stared at him.

“Are you mad? That was amazing! You were stunningly beautiful!” she exclaimed.

Loki couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t repulsed by the sight of his natural form? And what was almost as intriguing was that he FINALLY got a real, emotional reaction from Meg. Frankly, he hadn’t thought it possible. She seemed giddy with excitement. He couldn’t believe this was the same woman who never changed her facial expression in ANY way. She was positively glowing. And as he was the God of Lies, he knew it was real. This was the real Meg, happy, curious and excited. She looked completely different. He couldn’t help but smile. 

“It was an emergency, I had to shift into Jotunn form,” he said almost apologetic.

“You have to show me again. You absolutely have to!” she stated, grinning. 

Grinning? 

At that moment, all the tension, the worry, the panic fell off of Loki and he simply laughed. There she was, his Midgardian friend, begging him to show her his monstrous Jotunn form again, just because she thought it was beautiful.

Maybe Midgard wasn’t as dull as he’d always thought.

\--------------------

Loki stepped out of the bathroom in their hotel room in Toronto. They were on a mission to find the last few remaining Hydra agents in North America and a small group had apparently gone into hiding in Canada, of all places. 

He was toweling his hair dry while Meg sat cross-legged on the bed, finishing the daily mission update for Stark. She looked up at him with a lopsided grin.

“Fancy getting dinner at a proper restaurant and not the hotel for once?” she asked.

Loki was still astonished how much she had changed since Manila. She didn’t talk much about herself, but from time to time, she let slip another personal detail that fit as a piece of the puzzle she was. To everyone else, she was the Statue as Stark called her, emotionless and cold. But as soon as Loki closed the door to the hotel room or the flap of the tent, she was the curious, lively friend he’d always needed. 

“Sure. Do you have anything specific in mind?”

“Yes. I know my way around this place,” she replied, pressing send on the report.

“Ah?”

She looked up at him, still grinning.

“I know my way around this city. I’m from Canada, after all. Not from Toronto, but been here a few times,” she answered. 

Loki chuckled. He felt that she was telling the truth. Another piece of the puzzle fit.


End file.
